Caitlyn Marie Jenner ( Bruce Jenner )

Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born October 28, 1949), formerly known as Bruce Jenner, is an American television personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. Since 2007, she has been appearing on E!'s reality television program Keeping Up with the Kardashians and is currently starring in the reality TV show I Am Cait, which focuses on her gender transition.

Jenner was a college football player for the Graceland Yellow jackets before incurring a knee injury requiring surgery. CoachL. D. Weldon, who had coached Olympic decathlete Jack Parker, convinced Jenner to try the decathlon. After intense training, Jenner won the 1976 Olympics decathlon title at the Montreal Summer Olympics (after a Soviet athlete had won the title in 1972) during the Cold War, gaining fame as "an all-American hero”. Jenner set a third successive world record while winning the Olympics. The winner of the Olympic decathlon is traditionally given the unofficial title of "world's greatest athlete." With that stature, Jenner subsequently established a career in television, film, authoring, as a Playgirl cover model, auto racing and business.

Jenner revealed her identity as a trans woman in April 2015 and publicly announced her name change from Bruce to Caitlyn in a July 2015 Vanity Fair cover story. Her name and gender change became official on September 25, 2015. She has been called the most famous openly transgender woman in the world.

Jenner has six children from marriages to ex-wives Chrystie Crownover, Linda Thompson and Kris Jenner.

At the 1972 men's decathlon U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, Jenner was in fifth place behind Steve Gough and Andrew Pettes. Needing to make up a 19-second gap on Gough in the men's 1500 metres, Jenner ran a fast last lap, separating from the other runners by 22 seconds to make the Olympic team, leading the Eugene Register-Guard to ask "Who's Jenner?" A tenth-place finish in the decathlon event at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich followed. Watching Soviet Mykola Avilov win inspired Jenner to start an intense training regimen. "For the first time, I knew what I wanted out of life and that was it, and this guy has it. I literally started training that night in midnight, running through the streets of Munich, Germany, training for the Games. I trained that day on through the 1976 Games, 6–8 hours a day, every day, 365 days a year."

After graduating from Graceland, Jenner married girlfriend Chrystie Crownover and moved to San Jose, California. Chrystie provided most of the family income working as a flight attendant for United Airlines. Jenner sold insurance at night (earning US$9,000 a year), while training during the day. In the era before professionalism was allowed in athletics, this kind of training was unheard of. During this period, Jenner trained at the San Jose City College (SJCC) and San Jose State University (SJSU) tracks. Centered around Bert Bonanno, the coach at SJCC, San Jose was at the time a hotbed for training which was called the "Track Capital of the World", and included many other aspiring Olympic athletes, such as Millard Hampton, Andre Phillips, John Powell, Mac Wilkins, and Al Feuerbach. Jenner's most successful events were the skill events of the second day.

Jenner was the American champion in the men's decathlon event in 1974, and was featured on the cover of Track & Field News's August 1974 issue. While on tour in 1975, Jenner won the French national championship. This was followed by new world records of 8,524 points at the U.S.A./U.S.S.R./Poland triangular meet in Eugene, Oregon on August 9–10, 1975, breaking Avilov's record, and 8,538 points at the 1976 Olympic trials, also in Eugene.

At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Jenner achieved five personal bests on the first day of the men's decathlon, a "home run" despite finishing the first day in second place behind Guido Kratschmer of West Germany. "The second day has all my good events. If everything works out all right, we should be ahead after it's all over." On the second day, Jenner had a strong showing in the hurdles and discus, and personal bests in the pole vault and javelin. By that point, victory was virtually assured, but it remained to be seen by how much Jenner would improve the record. In the final event, the 1500 metres seen live on national television, Jenner looked content to finish the long competition. Then Jenner sprinted the last lap, making up a 50-meter deficit and nearly catching the event favorite Soviet Leonid Litvinenko who was already well out of contention for the overall title but whose personal best had been 8 seconds better than Jenner's before the race. Jenner set a new personal best time, taking the gold medal with a world-record score of 8,616 points.

After the event, Jenner took an American flag from a spectator and carried it during the victory lap, starting a tradition that is now common among athletes. Abandoning vaulting poles in the stadium with no intention of ever competing again, "In 1972, I made the decision that I would go four years and totally dedicate myself to what I was doing, and then I would move on after it was over with. I went into that competition knowing that would be the last time I would ever do this." Jenner explained, "It hurts every day when you practice hard. Plus, when this decathlon is over, I got the rest of my life to recuperate. Who cares how bad it hurts?"

As a result of winning the Olympic decathlon, Jenner became a national hero, receiving the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States and being named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year (both in 1976).

Jenner's 1976 world record was broken by four points by Daley Thompson in 1980. In 1985, Jenner's Olympic decathlon score was reevaluated against the IAAF's updated decathlon scoring table and was reported as 8,634 for comparative purposes. This converted mark stood as the American record until 1991, when it was surpassed by eventual gold medalist and world record holder Dan O'Brien of Dan & Dave fame. As of 2011, Jenner was ranked twenty-fifth on the world all-time list and ninth on the American all-time list.

Jenner was inducted into the United States National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1980, the Olympic Hall of Fame in 1986, the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame and the Connecticut Sports Hall of Fame in 1994, and the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. For almost 20 years, San Jose City College hosted an annual "Bruce Jenner Invitational" competition.